The disputed Wrestlemania 3 attendance.

[d_henderson1810]

I watched a Youtube video where the disputed WM3 attendance record is discussed.

The dispute is that WWE bragged that they broke the Silverdome attendance record with 93, 173 in attendance, but this has been discredited by some as closer to 78,000.

Dave Meltzer, who put the discussion out there to begin with, discussed that he believed the 93, 000 figure as well, until a promoter for the show said that it was 78,000, since the Poniac Silverdome could only hold 80,000 for football games at the time. Also, only 78,000 tickets were recorded as being bought.

Well, I dispute that it was closer to 93,000. Other reading I have done has put across some interesting thoughts.

-78,000 tickets were BOUGHT but one argument is that another 15,000 tickets were given away or competition winners.

78,000 + 15,000 = 93,000, so you could still get the figure WWE stated.

-Second argument against the 78,000 figure. Maybe Silverdome could only fit 80,000 capacity for sporting events. However, this does not account for floor seats (which aren't a factor in football games). It is easy to believe that another 13,173 people could have been seated at floor level. Also, remember that more people could get seats at WM, since this was before the days of the massive elaborate Wrestlemania set which covers a whole wall of the arena, so there is room to tuck people, even near the entranceway.

Also, Meltzer said that the best selling WM ticket wise was apparently WMX7 at the Astrodome, since the arena was small and it was very well booked, that WWE sold virtually every ticket issued, and there were very few free tickets.

 

[suleman09]

Who cares what people say? I say any rational human being can tell that there are way more than 80,000 people at WM 3. Simply take a look at a picture of the Silverdome for a football game which can hold 80,311 and take a look at a pic from WM 3 and see all of the extra people where the field would be and that should be your answer right there. Plus why would WWE lie about attendance by that much? I don't think they are THAT desperate to be in the history books of breaking records. To go from 78,000 to 93,000? Yea, there is no need for debate here.

 

[Burritocover]

I've heard for years that they inflated the number but I've never seen anyone offer any proof of it. I totally agree with the argument of how many people fit on the floor. I think 93,000 is totally reasonable. Meltzer also said there were only 67k this year not 77k. Levi stadium holds 68k and I think the floor more than makes up for the seats behind the stage that aren't used. He also said there were empty seats all over the place. I was there and the were a handful of empty seats but I don't think more than maybe 100-200. And they were really easy to spot because they are red. Also it seems like if they are lying every year about it someone who knows how many they really sold is gonna post if on reddit or something. Someone who works for ticketmaster or something and wants to expose them. I also think that writhed company being public and them having to release their financials I have a feeling lying about attendance would be a bad idea and possibly illegal. It's not the same as lying about profits but it would definitely be lying about their popularity. Even if it's not illegal it just seems very unwise and could open a huge can of worms with investors, never mind the negative publicity they'd get if they were exposed. The media would love that. Anything negative about wrestling they love.

 

[Prince Vee]

I don't know how well true the fact that Wrestlemania 3 attendance is only 78000 is because I too have read it somewhere on internet but on a random sight and not on any legitimate pro-wrestling site. It has been discussed in the site under the topic "Top 10 Professional Wrestling lies" and it stated something like Vince McMahon keeps on pushing it on the media and everywhere that The attendance at Silverdome for Wrestlemania is 93000 but the stadium itself can hold only 80000. But still I would say that I'm not sure how well true that is!!

Cheers!!

 

[klunderbunker]

Yes, the capacity for a football game is 82,000. However, as people so often forget, a football field is a lot bigger than a wrestling ring. They've documented over 93,000 to see the Pope so it's hardly impossible.

This is one of those things that keeps coming up and Dave Meltzer is right there counting every single person in the audience because one man said there were only 78,000. Now every year he declares the Wrestlemania attendance as fake, because something about you can't count that fast or some other nonsense. I'd assume WWE announces the paid attendance, which is common practice in almost every major sport so it's hardly anything new.

I say there were 93,173 people there because I've yet to see any real proof that there wasn't, other than one person who says otherwise. Aside from that, what difference does it make? It's the biggest wrestling show ever with the biggest match of all time. That's all that really matters for Wrestlemania and the show more than holds up today, no matter how many people were there.

 

[Charismatic Enigma]

Well, if someone has a shit load of time on their hands, there's a pretty easy way to get to the bottom of this…

First take a bunch of screen sheets, and dig up as a many photos as possible. Piece together a layout, and then meticulously count every person you see. Of course people will have gotten up to pee, or whatever, but still you'd easily be able to answer the discrepancy between 78,000 and 93,000 as I doubt that 15,000 people all would've been out of their seat at the same time.

I do think that common knowledge says that WWE will brag/embellish/manipulate the facts of literally ANYTHING they can, this includes the height and weight of wrestlers, TV ratings, attendance numbers, social media stats, etc. The truth is most of this stuff makes no difference to anyone at all, but that what pathological liars do, they just get off on lying, no matter how big or small that lie may be.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter to me. I think it looked great, and it's got a legendary status so the difference of 15,000 people one way or the other doesn't really change the event or its significance in my eyes. Also, for the record I thought WM8 looked HUGE and that one never seems to get talked about for some reason. Especially when you consider that 7 and 9 both were very small crowds comparatively speaking.

 

[SoulTrain4]

Like many have said previously this "disputing" of WWE attendance figures is almost always ridiculous.

I find it pretty entertaining that folks somehow know WWE's business better than they do without actually having to count asses in seats.

The same people who aren't entirely sure how many people the building can hold have somehow figured out WWE is fudging numbers.

Let's just say "there were empty seats all over the place", like really? Maybe those seats were filled but people were buying merch or in the bathroom, how do you know for certain what seats are empty?

They also claim WWE gave away X amount of tickets to inflate the numbers (something you hear commonly when talking abou the mid-late 90s) but you never hear how they found this out and how many they have away.

It's just a running gag of the dirtsheets. I usually pay it no mind because it's just "smart" marks with no proof whatsoever just hearsay.

The shotty "reporting" of Meltzer and his minions should be well known by now. They have few sources, if any, for their information and people buy into it because their gullible. Most people don't give a shit either way.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

Klunderbunker, in disputing the naysayers, mentions that one if the reasons given is how can the tickets be counted in such a short amount of time? Well these days they use scanners rather than hand count, for one thing, and I imagine they would go on ticket sales. (Just to clarify, this isn't a direct response to KB as I realise he was criticising the likes if Meltzer and those who claim WM3 was inflated)

In the UK, venues pay tax on ticket sales (obviously this is passed on to the spectator), so common practice over here is to announce the actual amount of tickets sold/comped, as opposed to necessarily the amount of people through the door. I am unsure, but I would be surprised if the US was much different. So any company offering an over-inflated figure would actually be doing themselves out of money, as they would pay more tax.

Also take into account the question of public limited companies, as WWE is. They are legally required to publically announce their financial figures, and in WWE's case, that includes attendance figures. Yes, they may paper a crowd here and there - some places more than others. But what does it matter if a few hundred/thousand got in for free? There's always reasons for it, and they still attended (and, in taxation terms, venues/companies would still be liable to taxation from these, as no ticket is truly free, effectively the company/venue pays for it.)

This WM3 myth, to me, remains unproven, and is just another stick for haters to hit WWE with

 

[Wald]

Well there are a few angles to this. One, WWF was and is in the business of smoke and mirrors and have often inflated their figures, so it's easily within the realms of possibility that they lied about this one. They did lie about one thing about that day already when they repeated for years (they might still do?) that their attendance was the highest for the Silverdome ever. Whilst the WM3 attendance (the WWE version anyway) set the record for the venue it only last for a few months before the visit of Pope John Paul II broke it.

Now on to whether or not it is true to begin with. Well the Silverdome itself says they did hit the 93,000 mark so I tended to believe it was true for a while. But you have to remember that the main promoter of the event in the region, Zane Bresloff, is the one who told Metzler that the 93,000 figure is a lie and that 78,000 is the actual number. He said that Vince has lied about it so often that he thinks Vince believes it himself now though. He later backed up his claims by sending Meltzer a fax of the official statement from the building from back in 1987. This gave the attendance at just over 78,000.

Am I also misremembering this or did Bret Hart say in his book that many believed Summerslam 92 holds, or held until WM 29, the true highest attendance record holder?

To be honest I think the 93,000 figure is a lie. You have to remember that Hogan v Andre was billed as the biggest match in wrestling history and so Vince would have wanted it to smash all attendance records, not just break them. Silverdome's attendance record before WM3 was just under 77,000 (Led Zeppelin concert from 1977) so breaking that by 1,000+ people sounds impressive but doesn't hold the wow factor that beating it by 16,000 does. Remember that Vince is a showbiz promoter and he had a lot banking on Wrestlemania 3 after a lacklustre Wrestlemania 2.

 

[klunderbunker]

Klunderbunker, in disputing the naysayers, mentions that one if the reasons given is how can the tickets be counted in such a short amount of time? Well these days they use scanners rather than hand count, for one thing, and I imagine they would go on ticket sales. (Just to clarify, this isn't a direct response to KB as I realise he was criticising the likes if Meltzer and those who claim WM3 was inflated)

In the UK, venues pay tax on ticket sales (obviously this is passed on to the spectator), so common practice over here is to announce the actual amount of tickets sold/comped, as opposed to necessarily the amount of people through the door. I am unsure, but I would be surprised if the US was much different. So any company offering an over-inflated figure would actually be doing themselves out of money, as they would pay more tax.

Also take into account the question of public limited companies, as WWE is. They are legally required to publically announce their financial figures, and in WWE's case, that includes attendance figures. Yes, they may paper a crowd here and there - some places more than others. But what does it matter if a few hundred/thousand got in for free? There's always reasons for it, and they still attended (and, in taxation terms, venues/companies would still be liable to taxation from these, as no ticket is truly free, effectively the company/venue pays for it.)

This WM3 myth, to me, remains unproven, and is just another stick for haters to hit WWE with

They've announced paid attendance of baseball games that night for years. Why would Wrestlemania III be any different? I can't imagine that in 1987 there wasn't a counting mechanism in the turnstiles.

 

[HORRORHOLIC]

The seating capacity is 82,000 and you can clearly see the place was packed. Look how big the floor area is and how many people were on the floor ? It would only need to be over 10 thousand and that looks about right.

Keep in mind it wasn't just WWE saying this, it was an official record.

 

[Wald]

Had a look for more discussions on this and found a picture of the Pope's visit that is widely accept to have drawn close to 94,000

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y175/davidbix/popefromsilverdomesite.jpg

It's a different angle from this shot of WM3 down below but from the discussions on other forums/blogs it seems there was a shot like this of the Pope's visit but all the links are dead to it now.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y175/davidbix/wm3fromsilverdomesite.jpg

Basically people were more packed in for the Pope than they were for WM3 and yet both attendances are given at roughly the same (the Pope had something like 300 people more at his officially). I bet the answer to if WM3 had 78,000 or 93,000 in attendance is that it was neither. I don't think there's a difference of 15,000 in those pics but I also agree that the Pope had a fair bit more than 300 extra people too. Attendance could have been something like 86,000 but Vince wanted it put out that they broke the 90k mark and, as we all know from our underage drinking days of saying you're three years over the legal age and not just on it, you always add a bit more to your target.

Other option is also plausible though. The Pope didn't pull in his crowd either and also cooked the books to make himself seem more possible and to 'beat' the wrestling company. Both could have been around the 78,000 mark and both are lying about it

 

[Dmbfantomas]

They've announced paid attendance of baseball games that night for years. Why would Wrestlemania III be any different? I can't imagine that in 1987 there wasn't a counting mechanism in the turnstiles.

Not just baseball games, either. They do it for pretty much every American sporting event and have done so for decades. Watching old football games or NBA finals games, etc the announcers always would announce the attendance at the top of the show and a couple more times during the game when there was a lull in action to get people excited again.

 

[klunderbunker]

Not just baseball games, either. They do it for pretty much every American sporting event and have done so for decades. Watching old football games or NBA finals games, etc the announcers always would announce the attendance at the top of the show and a couple more times during the game when there was a lull in action to get people excited again.

Exactly. I have no idea why WWE isn't supposed to be able to do it if the NFL etc can do it with ease, especially today with the ability to just scan the tickets.

This complaining about the attendance is like complaining about someone now using their real name. The Rock's real name is Dwayne Johnson, but how many people said Dwayne Johnson fought Steve Austin at Wrestlemania X7? WWE's business is messing with names and numbers, even down to the wrestlers' heights. It's not a big deal if they altered it, even though I don't think they did.

 

[GodCompleX]

As far as I'm concerned, there is no dispute and the attendance was a true 93,173. Why? Because I was there. That place was packed out for WM3. From the floor to the rafters, there were people everywhere. PPV existed but it wasn't a major factor like it is today, so if you wanted to see the spectacle you had to be in attendance or wait a year for it to come out on VHS at the time.

 

[HORRORHOLIC]

Had a look for more discussions on this and found a picture of the Pope's visit that is widely accept to have drawn close to 94,000

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y175/davidbix/popefromsilverdomesite.jpg

It's a different angle from this shot of WM3 down below but from the discussions on other forums/blogs it seems there was a shot like this of the Pope's visit but all the links are dead to it now.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y175/davidbix/wm3fromsilverdomesite.jpg


Basically people were more packed in for the Pope than they were for WM3 and yet both attendances are given at roughly the same (the Pope had something like 300 people more at his officially). I bet the answer to if WM3 had 78,000 or 93,000 in attendance is that it was neither. I don't think there's a difference of 15,000 in those pics but I also agree that the Pope had a fair bit more than 300 extra people too. Attendance could have been something like 86,000 but Vince wanted it put out that they broke the 90k mark and, as we all know from our underage drinking days of saying you're three years over the legal age and not just on it, you always add a bit more to your target.

Other option is also plausible though. The Pope didn't pull in his crowd either and also cooked the books to make himself seem more possible and to 'beat' the wrestling company. Both could have been around the 78,000 mark and both are lying about it

It looks like the Pope had more people more packed but it's definitely the angle. Look how much space there is in a shot from above

 

[Burritocover]

AND THE POPE WAS FREE!

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

It has been well known in wrestling communities for over 20 years that whilst WM3 was, and still is, classed as the highest attended WWF/WWE event from their persepective the highest attendance for a WWF event is Summer Slam 1992 where truthfully about 4000 more people attended than at WM3. Because WWF had lied in the 1980s about the 93,000 fans at WM3, they could not then claim SummerSlam 1992 as the highest attended event in company history as Vince McMahon loves WM 3 and sees it as the day he actually "made it".

 

[JiggaGeoff]

It's going to be a moot point anyway; Wrestlemania 32 is going to set an all-time attendance record. The AT&T stadium (which is where it is being held) had almost 109,000 people in attendance for the NBA all-star game, I'm sure WWE will be able to draw a similar crowd.

 

[SportsNation2K7]

There's a possibility that over 100,000 people might be in attendace for WM32. AT&T Stadium (home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys) holds 80,000 for football. Now I know the WWE likes to have huge sets so I would assume 2 to 3,000 seats would be blocked for that. I assume they will probably try to cram as many people on the floor for WM so lets say there would prabably be something like 5 to 7,000 seats on the floor. Now the big X-Factor (you know you dealing with The X-Factor lol) is if they decide if they would open up the Standing Room Only sections that are at AT&T stadium. If so they could push the attendance up to somewhere around 104,000+ people. Which I wonder, would WWE even think about selling stading room only tickets to WM?

 

[FlairFan2003]

.

Am I also misremembering this or did Bret Hart say in his book that many believed Summerslam 92 holds, or held until WM 29, the true highest attendance record holder?

.

S-Slam 92 was held at Wembley Stadium....wasn't that an outdoor stadium, as in it wouldn't count for the purposes of this discussion (North American INDOOR Attendance Record, WM 3 Pontiac Silverdome, 1987) ???

Actually, the second day of the 2 day festival in North Korea in 1995 that featured several top American & Japanese Wrestlers is Pro Wrestling Record holder, over 100,000 in attendance.

 

[FlairFan2003]

According to .....
http://silverdome-architect.blogspot.com/2013/03/silverdome-facts.html

Site: 132 total acres:100 acres - Parking Lot
20 acres - Silverdome

Seating
Lower Level: 42,082
Bench Seats-(3,634)
Club Level-7,342
Upper Level-29,399
Private Suites-1,246
Wheelchair-256

Capacity
Football, Soccer, Supercross, Tractor Pull, Rodeos: 80,325
Political Rallies, Religious Crusades: 90,000

Certainly leads credence to idea that 93,000 fans could have fit in the stadium

 

[Wald]

S-Slam 92 was held at Wembley Stadium....wasn't that an outdoor stadium, as in it wouldn't count for the purposes of this discussion (North American INDOOR Attendance Record, WM 3 Pontiac Silverdome, 1987) ???

I'm more talking about what WWE put out as their highest attendance ever. If I remember right there's a part in the Hitman's book that says many believe Summerslam 92 is the true holder of the title (though Wrestlemania 29 has since beaten that number and pushed it in to third place)

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

What about current WM events.

WM29 had an attendance of 80,000+ at Met Life Stadium
The Superbowl that was held at Met Life had an attendance of 82,000+

Looks like there would have been other factors that would prevented a stadium to exceed the attendance despite having floor seats at WM events.

 

[ryankayy506]

I personally don't believe the attendance was only 78,000 either as the floor seats would add people to the capacity for a football game. Also, while the actual number of tickets might not be 93,173 there probably were that many in the building if you count the people that did not need tickets. These people would be the workers for WWE, workers at the concession stands, ushers, security, etc. These people wouldn't show up in the aerial photo of WrestleMania III.